Posted on 09/07/2014 4:27:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The logic of Black rebellion is lost on much of the privileged white population and the corporate media, which perceive Black rage as irrational. However, the Black response to white supremacy “is not ‘senseless’ or ‘visceral’; it is the product of a life full of experiences that have tried to beat them down to their knees.”
“I wanted revenge on those racist bullies who had joyfully traumatized a pair of 9-year-old boys walking to the store.”
On a crisp, Fall evening in 1992, while I was a freshman at a SUNY (State University of New York) school, the campus erupted after a white, male student assaulted a black, female student. Being an associate of the African American Student Union Body Association (AASUBA) at the time, I attended an emergency meeting that was called in order to discuss the incident and consider potential responses. The meeting ensued, but there was little discussion. Instead, the room was a hotbed of rage. As one of only two white students among over fifty members and associates, some of the fury was directed at me, literally. I understood why; because I felt the rage myself.
As an 18-year-old overflowing with testosterone-ridden angst, I wanted to find the perpetrator and exact justice on him and anyone else who stood by him. I didn't care to hear an explanation. I had already spent years "undercover in white America," where I had been privy to the ignorant hatefulness and pervasive racism that filled casual interactions in living rooms and at dinner tables. It was ugly. It was nauseating. I had seen enough in my life – as well as during my few months on campus – to convince me this assault had to be racially motivated. I didn't need questions asked and answered. Deep down, I already knew. And the fact that this man had targeted a woman only made it that more infuriating.
Had an outsider witnessed what took place in that small conference room, as the few suggestions for a calm and calculated response were quickly drowned out by thundering and profanity-laced calls for violence, they would have likely disregarded or minimized it as "senseless" and "visceral" rage. As I stood there, consumed by the moment, feeling the blood boiling in my veins as my entire body was shaking, my own reaction seemed visceral. I could have nearly fooled myself. But I didn't; and it wasn't. Rather, it was the consummation of a series of life events that had left bubbles of emotional fury within me, all of which had been waiting to boil over. As I stood there with my fists clenched, memories flooded my brain.
I immediately recalled the time when my best friend and I were randomly targeted and bullied by a pack of strangers as we walked to the store. The pushing and shoving we experienced were bad enough; however, those physical acts were dwarfed by a slew of racial epithets that were thrown at my friend (who happened to be Black), each one making my gut wrench as I observed the callous and almost entertaining nature in which they were delivered as my friend's eyes swelled with tears. We were 9 years old. The bullies were much older. We were far outnumbered and much too scared to even consider retaliating. Instead, we both cried as the pack walked away in a celebratory zeal. I would come to realize much later on that this interaction probably was not as random as I had once thought.
“It was the consummation of a series of life events that had left bubbles of emotional fury within me, all of which had been waiting to boil over.”
I recalled the nights I had stayed up late, as an intensely curious 12-year-old, watching a PBS documentary called Eyes on the Prize. I remembered the trance I found myself in while watching Martin Luther King, Jr.'s powerful oratories. I recalled the delightful pride that coursed through my body as I watched Malcolm X put television personalities and interviewers in their place. But, mostly, I thought of the rage that consumed me while I watched rabid racists – both civilian and police – abuse, intimidate, and humiliate Black folks. This rage became internalized as I could not help but see the pack of bullies who had confronted me and my friend years earlier.
I recalled an incident that had occurred only a few months prior, as friends and I were pulled over in a parking lot by two police cars that had come to a screeching halt in front of us. As the three officers exited the vehicles nervously with weapons drawn, the five of us in the car simultaneously instructed one another to show our hands in a feverish instinct of self-preservation. We had done nothing wrong, but that didn't matter. The officers proceeded to order us from the car, inspect the car, and question us. Eventually, we were allowed to leave – with only an explanation that "someone had made a complaint." Two of the passengers in the car that night were Black. There is no question in my mind that had we all been white, the incident would have never taken place. Had we all been white, those guns would have never left their respective holsters. And had we all been Black, and this had occurred in St. Louis – or any metropolitan area in the U.S. for that matter – one or all of us may have been shot dead that night, with no explanation or recourse to follow.
I recalled stories my mother had just recently shared with me regarding the underlying racism she experienced at her workplace, much of which she suspected was directed at her son (me) and his best friend – the pair that often stopped in to visit her. Racist pictures being pinned up on display in the break room; the whispers of racist jokes being delivered as she walked by; the stares of ridicule and intimidation that she caught from time to time – all products of a reactionary and racist judgment of something as innocent as her son's friendship with another boy. This was in the late-1980s, not the 1960s.
On that Fall night in 1992, as news of this assault spread through campus, those recollections in me boiled over. I wanted revenge. I wanted revenge on those racist bullies who had joyfully traumatized a pair of 9-year-old boys walking to the store. I wanted revenge on those racist southerners who had brazenly spilled food on the heads of Black students sitting at the Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter. I wanted revenge on the Chicago racist who hurled a rock at Dr. King, hitting him on the head. I wanted revenge on Bull Connor and his sadistic police forces that attacked courageous and non-violent protesters with dogs and high-powered water hoses. I wanted revenge on those cops who recklessly pulled their guns on a car full of teenagers that were doing no wrong. I wanted revenge on my mother's coworkers for subjecting her to their hateful ignorance. This was my chance to exact that revenge, in one fell swoop.
“I am allowed the privilege to hide in my white skin, protected from any real consequences.”
The white man who had chosen to assault a black woman on campus that night was the physical embodiment of this ugly history that filled me with rage. It was not "visceral." It was not "senseless." It was long overdue. Yet, it was merely the product of a series of observations and experiences made and lived by a white male growing up in a mostly-white, small town. Over the course of 18 years, these experiences had been few and far between, yet still forged a conscious anger in me. One can easily presume that these experiences which shaped my rage are hardly comparable to those lived by Black Americans on a daily basis, for years at a time, at an intense rate, and of which have a real impact on the course of a life. Despite the rage that fills me, I still have the option to choose to ignore it, or at the very least tuck it aside from time to time. I am allowed the privilege to hide in my white skin, protected from any real consequences. My experiences do not prevent me from getting a job or suitable apartment. They do not attract unfair treatment from police, judges, and juries. They do not restrict opportunities and resources. And they do not draw suspicious stares, the sound of car doors locking as I walk by, or the constant harassment of store employees.
I am still "undercover in White America." Citizens in Ferguson, Missouri are not. And their rage is not "senseless" or "visceral"; it is the product of a life full of experiences that have tried to beat them down to their knees; that have attempted to "keep them in their place"; that have yearned to make them feel inferior; that have fought to dehumanize them, their families, and their children. Like most Black Americans, their collective rage is conscious, justified, and long overdue.
*******
Colin Jenkins is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer with a B.A. in Historical Studies and M.A. in Social Policy. He is founder, editor and Social Economics Department chair at the Hampton Institute, and has been published on Truthout, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Black Agenda Report, Popular Resistance, and in Z Magazine. His academic work includes concentrations in Community & Government, African American Studies, and Political Economy, with focuses on Marxian and Anarchist analyses. He is the author of A Fatal Agenda: The Social, Economic and Democratic Consequences of Neoliberalism; and has a second book, The Dusk of Democracy: America's Failed Experiment with Self-Determination, scheduled for publication in 2014.
If somebody insults you for being overweight, here’s what you say: “I’m fat, and you’re ugly. But I can lose weight if I want to. What’s your option?”
Ah, but I’m also ugly. LOL
What finally happened with the investigation, was anyone prosecuted for the alleged assault, or was it a Tawana Brawley-type affair?
Umm, not sure what you’re talking about. But okay.
According to this guy, it seems not. In fact, you should willingly submit as some kind of pay-back!
Sounds like the typical racial attack hoax meant to excuse their uncivil behavior.
I sit corrected. And thank you for making my point better than I did. /NO sarc
See my tag...
yeah, something like them might have happened...I'm white and had a few incidents happen to me when I was very young....I'm now 75....but I only considered them isolated cases of people with very bad habits and low intelligence doing things that they shouldn't be doing.....Did I ever reciprocate....probably, and hat made me just as guilty.....but not racist. I lived in Milwaukee, attended Storey grade school, and had MANY black friends. I had lunch at their houses and they had lunch at mine many many times....we thought nothing of it.
Sniff
Um, that’s already happened.
He’s whiter than I am.
why do you suppose that they do this????perhaps experience is their teacher???
So how many times have you had to defend yourself against a violent mugger? For me, the answer is three times. Locations: Columbus, OH (”good” part of town) and Los Angeles.
I have taken a gun out of a thug’s hands and backed off two other muggers. All “victim class.”
Apparently, white boy looks like an easy victim. 6’4” 190 lb white boy. Me.
So you got followed and stopped. Boo freaking hoo. I had my life threatened.
Cry me a river.
PS Can I get me some lightning? Please?
In the book “Suicide of a Superpower,” the writer concluded: “An analysis of ‘single offender victimization figures’ from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks. Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study.”
Others reported the same numbers.
But I could not find FBI stats for 2007 that cover black-on-white and white-on-black violent crimes. I did see "hate" crimes and surprise.. blacks are victims of white hate crimes eight hundred trillion times more often than whites are victims of anything.
I have posted DoJ surveys of victims of crimes including for the year 2007. Turns out that appears to be the source. But these are DoJ stats obtained from interviews with tens of thousands of victims of crime.
Crimes of violence against whites 3,262,660 and 13.3 % were black offenders; that's 433,934 times
Crimes of violence against blacks 562,470 and 9.9% were white offenders; that's 55,685 times
Crimes of violence against whites by blacks is 7.79 times the number of crimes of violence against blacks by whites.
This appears to be the source of the claim. Including the "Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study" except it is not listed as an FBI product. It is part of DoJ annual survey of crime victims even it the crime was unreported.
So if the Obama/Holder Dept. of Just Us and Our People have not deleted or altered the original Dept. of Justice files here it is:
The claims from the book and elsewhere touched off quite a controversy that still rages. In fact I first saw a wiki graffiti article with the claim and a link to the DoJ survey. I did not think much of it.. a crime is a crime reported or not.
Well wiki graffiti deleted all references including the link to DoJ.
The pattern of the white-on-black crime seems odd I wish Obama-Holder Dept. of Just Us would have tried to explain it rather that stop making the data public -- at least for some reason Table 42 for 2009 and on is not like it used to be. That I can find at least.
Well apparently that was a TKP (Thread Killing Post). Sorry.
Just another moron who’s down with the struggle.
They remind me of the car wash owner’s son in “Car Wash”.
There are so many black people who think that way that it makes me dread being around them. You sneeze wrong and it’s racist.
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